This portrait was apparently painted at the request of George P. Morris, and it may have passed from him to James Kirke Paulding, father of the donor. John William Casilear, a pupil of Durand, made an engraving of it which was published in "The New York Mirror" on August 9, 1834.

Bibliography:

"Editor's Table," The Knickerbocker, Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 399-400.
"Miscellaneous Notices of the Fine Arts, Literature, Science, the Drama, &c.
National Academy of Design - 9th Exhibition, 1834," The American Monthly Magazine III (May 1, 1834), No. 69, p. 211.
"National Academy of Design," The New York Evening Post, May 9, 1834, p. 2.
Morris, G. P., ed., "The Fine Arts: The National Academy," The New-York Mirror, A Weekly Journal, Devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts, Vol. XI, May 17, 1834, p. 367.
Morris, G. P., ed., "National Portrait Gallery," New-York Mirror, A Weekly Journal, Devoted to Literature and the Fine Art Vol. XII, No. 6, August 9, 1941, p. 41.
Tuckerman, Henry T., Book of the Artists, American Artist Life, Comprising Biographical and Critical Sketches of American Artists: Preceded by an Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of Art in America, New York: P. Putnam & Son, 1867, p. 192.
Harpers New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 66, no. 196, May 1883, p. 860.
Hunt, Gaillard, The Life of James Madison, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1902, p. 377.
"Pictures by Durand," The New York Times, April 26, 1903, p. 34.
Catalogue of the Gallery of Art of The New York Historical Society, New York: Printed for the Society, 1915, p. 25.
Sherman, Frederic Fairchild, Early American Portraiture, New York: Privately Printed, 1930, p. 41.
Bolton, Theodore, The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser. Vol. 8, No. 1, January 1951, pp. 25-47.
Vail, R. W., Knickerbocker Birthday: A Sesqui Centennial History of The New-York Historical Society 1804-1954, New York: The New-York Historical Society, 1954, pp. 136, 341.
Vail, R. W., "A Distinguished Company," The New-York Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. XXXVIII, no. 2, April 1954, p. 151.
Lawall, David B., Asher Brown Durand: His Art and Art Theory in Relation to his Times, Submitted to Princeton University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, March 1966, pp. 18, 45-6, 149-52, 156-9, 571, 614, 619.
Callow, James T., Kindred Spirits: Knickerbocker Writers and American Artists, 1807-1855, Durham, North Carolina, The University of North Carolina Press, 1967, p. 100-1.
Dunlap, William, A History of the Rise and Progress of The Arts of Design in the United States, A Reprint of the Original 1834 Edition with a New Introduction by
James Thomas Flexner, 1969, Vol. 2, Part 2, New York: Dover Publications, p. 287-8.
Catalogue of American Portraits in The New-York Historical Society, New Haven: Yale University Press, Vol. II, 1974, p. 513-4.
Durand, John, The Life and Times of Asher B. Durand, Hensonville, New York: Black Dome Press, 2006 (first published by C. Scribner's Sons, 1894), p. 109.
Ferber, Linda S., ed., "Asher B. Durand, American Landscape Painter", Kindred Spirits Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape, Brooklyn Museum, 2007, pp. 65, 81, 207, Chronology.

Credit Line:

Gift of P. Kemble Paulding

Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.